Sts Anthony the Hermit, Cornelius and Mary Magdalen with a Donor

Sts Anthony the Hermit, Cornelius and Mary Magdalen with a Donor, also from the Last-Judgement-Altar at the Bavarian State Painting Collections, shows the inclusion of a donor figure—the Cologne patron who commissioned this wing—kneeling before the protective saints. This device of the praying donor in the company of intercessory saints is fundamental to the social function of altarpiece painting: the commission was simultaneously an act of personal piety and a form of spiritual insurance. Lochner's placement of the donor at a smaller scale than the saints follows the hierarchical conventions of sacred art.

The donor figure is painted with more individualized facial features than the idealized saints surrounding him, reflecting the portrait function of this element. The spatial relationship between donor and saints—the latter standing while the former kneels in a lower register—is managed through scale and overlap rather than perspectival recession.